Understanding Our Connection with Animals
Leslie IrvineForeword by Marc Bekoff
Nearly everyone who cares about them believes that dogs and cats have a sense of self that renders them unique. Traditional science and philosophy declare such notions about our pets to be irrational and anthropomorphic. Animals, they say, have only the crudest form of thought and no sense of self at all. Leslie Irvine's If You Tame Me challenges these entrenched views by demonstrating that our experience of animals and their behavior tells a different story.
Dogs and cats have been significant elements in human history and valued members of our households for centuries. Why do we regard these companions as having distinct personalities and as being irreplaceable? Leslie Irvine looks closely at how people form "connections" with dogs and cats available in adoption shelters and reflects on her own relationships with animals. If You Tame Me makes a persuasive case for the existence of a sense of self in companion animals and calls upon us to reconsider our rights and obligations regarding the non-human creatures in our lives.
"Leslie Irvine's If You Tame Me is a fine book, one that introduces modern ideas about the self and the importance of emotions both for humans and for animals. I hope that many people will read this, look at their companion animals the way Irvine urges us to, and think about the implications. I love it when she gets personal; I only wish there were more passages about her own animals. She is good on anthropomorphism and why spoken language is not the be-all and end-all of intelligence. I learned much from reading this excellent book. I wish it a long life!" —Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals and The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey into the Feline Heart
"(The book) makes a persuasive case for the existence of a sense of self in companion animals and calls upon us to reconsider our rights and obligations regarding the non-human creatures in our lives." —Pets Quarterly
"This volume is an important contribution to the recent explosion of sociological analyses of the roles of animals in human life." —The American Journal of Sociology
"With much pleasure and interest I read Irvine's book about dogs, cats, and their 'guardians' (the word Irvine uses for people owning companion animals). Marc Bekoff's foreword is very friendly and a good appetizer: it prepares you and makes you curious about the chapters to come.... This sympathetic book is rich in ideas and will generate discussion! This is exactly what it needs to do. It is a first step toward an empirically grounded theory about animal selfhood, and hopefully inspire fellow researchers to develop it further. The book will also most certainly inspire animal lovers, who will gain more understanding about cats and dogs." —Anthrozoos
"Refreshingly, Irvine takes the thorny issue of anthropomorphism more seriously than some of her peers and situates our current cultural understandings of animals in their historical context. In a brief but illuminating historical account, Irvine traces the changing social construction of animals in the realms of philosophy, science, politics, and law and shows how shifting meanings affect the treatment and status of animals." —Sociological Forum
Animals, Culture, and Society, edited by Arnold Arluke and Clinton R. Sanders, is concerned with probing the complex and contradictory human-animal relationship through the publication of accessible books that consider the place of animals in our culture, our literature, our society, and our homes.
Animal Passions and Beastly Virtues
Marc Bekoff
Animals at Play
Marc Bekoff
Cat Culture
Janet M. Alger and Steven F. Alger
© 2006-2021 Temple University | All Rights Reserved